READY, SET, QUOTE
Expert quotes provide authority in articles. But how do you get an expert to speak candidly? How do you get them to talk to you, a stranger, at all?
When I started writing for magazines 20 years ago, I had no answer for these questions. I bumbled through interviews until I learned the myriad things an interviewer should (and should not) do. In the course of my freelance career, I developed a process honed through trial and error with many hundreds of interview subjects, ranging from Nobel Laureates to roller derby jammers. And all of them provided great quotes.
The American mile record-holder, Alan Webb, confessed he sometimes ran without socks in high school because, “I was lazy, and it was just one less thing to worry about.” Miss USA Chelsea Cooley revealed she’d been bullied in childhood. “The other kids were mean to me,” she said. “I was the tubby kid with glasses and braces.” Recounting a hostile cross-examination where the witness fainted, Baltimore lawyer Billy Murphy exclaimed, “We thought she was dead, the way she hit the ground.”
How did I get them to offer up these comments? I followed the basic principles described in three distinct stages below.
1 BEFORE THE INTERVIEW
ARRANGING THE INTERVIEW
Your work as an interviewer doesn’t begin when you sit down with your subject; it begins right after you land the assignment. At that point, you should map out your plan and which experts you want to speak with. Having an assignment from a specific magazine lends credence when you contact a potential interview subject. However, if the story is a profile of a person, you should contact the subject first to set up a tentative interview before sending the pitch; this will save you from promising editors a story that you cannot deliver.
Oftentimes you must follow certain protocols to speak with someone important. Executives and celebrities have gatekeepers – executive
